Oracle plans to ship JDK (Java Development Kit) 8 on March 18, even if it means the release might have some minor bugs.

In a posting to a Java mailing list Monday, Mathias Axelsson, Oracle JDK 8 release manager, emphasized intentions to ship the upgrade, which is based on Java Platform, Standard Edition 8, in March. But at this stage of the release process, only "showstopper bugs" are being considered for fixing in the initial JDK 8 release. "Non-showstopper bugs will be deferred to a later release in order to ensure we keep to the JDK 8 schedule and can ship on March 18."

Axelsson said builders of JDK 8 have been working hard on bug-fixing in order to build a release candidate by next week. "We have a few fixes that are pending integration, but overall things are looking very good and we're on track to have the release candidate built before the January 23 deadline."

Based on Java Platform, Standard Edition 8, JDK 8 is set to have such features as Project Lambda, to boost multicore programming capabilities, but another planned feature, Project Jigsaw, providing for modularity, was pushed back to the subsequent Java SE 9 release.